The room I was in was a plain little box with only a thin pile of blankets on the floor. A measly pillows stuffed with peaseed, a chamber pot in the corner. But, there was nothing going in so nothing came out and so, the pot was useless.
I had a jug of water on a small three legged stool and someone had brought tea. Neither tempted me nor could I pick them up if I wanted to. My wrists and ankles wore cuffs of pure silver and although softer than iron, I couldn’t bend or break them or the chains holding them together.
There were no windows and the door was solid oak with a bloody big iron lock in it. Even if I could get up, I couldn’t open it. I’d been lying in this room for several hours but had no idea how long I’d been unconscious. All I could do was rest quietly; on the outside I was calm, but inside, I was raving.
The hallucinations started and at first, I thought they were real. My mom, dad and I were sitting at the beautiful table he had hauled all the way from his father’s estates in the Walcott’s of Ehrenberg to the Newlands and put in storage until he’d raised the cottage. It was a snug four room cottage built from the abundant wood and stone of the area. With real glass windows and heavy four paneled doors that were solid and thick enough to stop a bullet or a musket ball. We were drinking tea and celebrating the last slate put on the roof of the twelve stall barn. Dad had hired day labor from the nearest town and paid them enough wages to earn their freedom and the barn had gone up in three days.
I was amazed at my father. He had grown up the second son of a powerful and rich Lord but he was more than a well-educated spoiled rich man. He knew more than just being a soldier or an officer. He knew the wild plants, how to hunt and track game, build a dry stone wall that would stand forever. How to milk a cow, gentle a horse and make time to play with his only son.
Afternoon tea was a ritual he never missed. Even if he was sick, mom would make tea and dad would pour it into his cherished bone porcelain Lemougeoux china cups, add milk and honey and pass it to mom saying, ‘we always serve the Master of the House first and all know that the Lady Croisciath is the true Heart of our home.’
I raised my hand to bring my cup to my mouth and could not. Frustrated, I jerked my hands and the tea spilled. Fragrant, hot, it splattered on my hands and face but it did not burn me.
It was the green-skinned frog in footman’s livery that made me suspect my head was in trouble. I was standing in line to be admitted into Governor Albans New Year’s Day party in my new green tails, ruffled and starched white blouse, knee breeches and polished shoes with gold buckles. In my hands was an enormous bouquet of dead flies in which I was attempting to use to bribe my way inside the ballroom.
The liveried frog/footman ignored me. No matter how much I shouted, it was as if I was voiceless and invisible. Only when I hit him with the bouquet was I able to enter the ballroom.
It was small. Barely big enough for me to turn around in and surely, no one could dance in there. I ran and ran around the room, pulling open doors, running through them only to find more and more doors and rooms that led–nowhere.
I sank down to my knees and cried in frustration when a miniature horse and knight galloped out of the darkness waving his sword at me. He was dressed completely in blood red armor, both knight and mount had gleaming red eyes like rabid demon.
“Blood!” He shrieked in fury. “It will have blood! The fires of both worlds seek blood and by it, he shall win!” He poked me in one finger and as a small bead of blood fell from my hand, he galloped off into someone else’s nightmare.
I had other bizarre dreams and recalled them when I opened my eyes. For a moment, I could not remember where I was–in the tree house, home or somewhere on the road searching.
My thoughts moved sluggishly as if bound in mud. It took me some minutes to realize I was laying on my back on the floor, not the ground, in a dark room, not a treehouse bedroom, chained and not free.
I groaned, swallowed and tried to lick my lips. I could swear I saw a glass of water on the stool, droplets of condensation dribbling down its sides. They did not splatter as they hit the stool’s seat but floated gently through the air and burst against my lips. I opened my mouth and they swam inside my parched tissues, singing as they did a backstroke. As my lips shut, I could feel them bouncing off my teeth and I tried to vomit but I had nothing left inside me to come up. The dry heaves would have made me scream in pain if only I could have spoken.
Vaguely, I heard other voices and in my delirium, thought them real. “He looks really bad. Comatose, out of it,” said the first one.
“Delirious, that’s what dehydration does to the human body. Causes the brain to swell and produces hallucinations, coma and then, death.” Second replied.
“Sergeant Tolliver reported that he was shouting about green frog footmen, trees and rooms where no one could dance. Then, he said something in a strange language,” said the first.
“There are many strange tongues I’m sure the good Sergeant doesn’t know.” Second was amused.
First sounded irate. “Sergeant Tolliver comes from a very good family, he’s the sixth son of a Count. He speaks five, himself. He said it sounded like Valesch.”
“Valesch?” Second was astonished. “It can’t be! No one alive this side of the wall speaks that! Did anyone but Tolliver hear him?”
“No.”
“Will he speak of this?”
“No. He is a good soldier and knows when to keep his mouth shut.”
“Send him in here and leave this wing,” Second commanded. I felt the door open and the presence of a man standing over me. “You asked for me, Blackfin?”
I remembered slowly that the name went with a red-haired woman yet everyone called her ‘him’. A wizard or witch. Suddenly, I was afraid and moaned.
“He’s awake?” Tolliver questioned.
“You heard him speak? Tell me what he said,” the Witch demanded.
“Croi sciathe. Champánoch, dearmad mac, beloved croi. Amhaín. Si laír. Spiorad narnhghlon. Leanaí. Chamhnoir ar an laoch. Capall medicine.”
“Have you told anyone what you’ve heard?”
“No, Blackfin. Why would I? Besides, I’ve been on guard duty here all night.”
I heard a gasp, a sucking sound and then something warm, heavy and wet splatted my face. Rivers of it. I licked my lips, swallowed and cried out for more.
Surprised sounds roused me and I heaved my fever swollen eyes open to see a black-robed figure of a red-haired woman holding a man dressed in the uniform of the governor’s Household Militia. He was dying, his blood spurting from his torn throat, his eyes wide in horror as I drank what hit my face.
The woman’s eyes glared fiercely and she conjured with one hand and in it appeared a cup. With an odd twist of her lips, she uttered one word. ‘Fill’.
The blood flowed from his neck, from the air and the ground into the cup. So much blood yet the cup did not spill over and when he was dead, there was not a speck left on the floor, walls or our clothing. He was as white as the belly of a pigeon, his face gray and dusky. She dropped him and I saw her nails go from dagger-sized claws to merely pampered ladies’ length. She knelt at my side and put the cup to my lips.
“Drink.” In a daze, I did so. The sweet, salty coppery bite of iron went down my throat and I swallowed. My stomach shrieked for more. I drank and drank until the cup emptied. Licked the inside out with my swollen tongue.
Croaked, “Is there more?”
She shook her head in amusement. “No, my bloodthirsty child. You drank the entire life’s blood of a murdered man.”
The words meant nothing to me. I rolled over and for the first time in what felt like years, I wasn’t hungry or thirsty. I slept.
In the morning, I woke as the sun did. I couldn’t see it but I could feel it coming up over the mountains and bouncing off the Glacier to sparkle in the air like a flat rainbow. I was full, my belly content until I realized what I had eaten.
I gagged at the thought. Tried to retch but my stupid stomach would not give up its meal. I cried and cursed the King. He had left me an option to escape him but it was such a vile practice that I was not sure it was worth it. Yet, I had clearly found a way to survive.
The witch smiled at me. “You may yet live to see your grandfather, young lad.”
“I won’t eat again,” I told her defiantly.
“Yes, you will. When your body needs more, it will demand sustenance from you and you will do anything to answer to it.” Saying that, she left me to my own thoughts and alone.
I raged, I rolled over and managed to climb to my feet. I could only take a step or two before the chains bound me. When I tried to take my displeasure out on the room, I kicked the wall, pulled my feet out from under me and I fell backwards landing on my butt and elbows. It hurt but the walls and floor didn’t care. I drew both feet up, kicked into the wall and saw with satisfaction that I was making huge holes in the plaster. Dust drifted in stray eddies of light and the noise brought another guard inside. When he saw what I was doing, he dragged me away from the wall pinning me up against the back one. He cuffed me and instantly, my face reddened. I tried to head-butt him but he slammed his elbow against my throat pinching off the air to my lungs.
Black spots sizzled in my sight. I tried to claw at his arm but he was stronger than I was. Voices raised out in the hallway approached the room and others burst in. I saw Allemande in his night robes and the Black Witch.
“Where’s Tolliver?” The aide-de-camp questioned, looking around the room as if I had hidden him. Blackfin snickered but said nothing. She stared at me and pointed. The guard let me go and I hung on the wall as if glued to it.
“Leave us,” she said and the crowd stirred, turned about and obeyed her without question. When we were alone, she studied me. “Do you know why I am called he and she?” She asked finally.
Dry-mouthed, I could only shake my head. “It is because I was born a man but am a woman in a man’s body. I like men. Young boys, especially. Many men are afraid of me because of this. It is what makes my power greater–when I take a young boy and pervert his desires.”
I was aghast. I had heard of such perversions and my father had warned me of such vile creatures. I had not believed him until a youngster from town had been taken, raped, killed and the man caught. His trial had been swift and merciless, I was not told all the details save that he had reaped what he had sown.
“You are not a virgin, Tobias so you would not give me as much pleasure as I would require but if you create another such incident, I will teach you what it means to be sodomized. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Furthermore, I will make you find your own food source and not so obligingly provide a victim for you. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I croaked.
“Good. You will hang there on the wall for the remainder of the night which will be punishment enough, I think.” So saying, he departed leaving me stuck there like a burr on a horse’s tail.